After reading so many horror stories on this forum about guests with unreasonable expectations, and their ability to tank your ratings, I finally had a guest who was completely unreasonable, and left me a one star review.
Our listing is titled "Rustic Country Cottage" and we are the least expensive whole-house listing in the area. I try very hard in the description to be as honest as possible so that people know what to expect. Also, before confirming a reservation I always send a message saying that I want to check with them, as I do all potential guests, that they read the description carefully and looked at the pictures. I also reiterate that it's a funky little placeand definitely a fixer-upper. The guest who ended up leaving me the terrible review requested to book, and said she was coming for one night with her daughter and her sister, and went through the usual confirmation process. She assured me that they loved quirky places (although I never use that word in any of my communications or descriptions) and were fine with the rustic nature of the place. We exchanged several other messages about travel times and recommendations for dinner. and I went out of my way to be as helpful and informative as possible. On the day of their stay they arrived and checked in, no problem. They dropped off their stuff and left to go to dinner. A bit after they came back, she sent me a message asking for bug spray because there was a spider in her daughter's room. I responded that I'd be right down with it, but she immediately messaged me that they couldn't stay there, they had expected quirky (there's that word again) but not an "infestation" of spiders. She said they had made other arrangements and were leaving, and demanded a full refund. I immediately refunded the payout that I had received (it wasn't worth arguing, my profit margin is so small and I could tell it would be a major drama to battle with her) along with a polite a respectful message saying that I had cleaned and made all the beds a few hours earlier and I had not seen any spiders, that we did do regular pest control, but I was giving her a full refund of the payout I would have received. After I gave her the refund, she continued to send me a string of nasty messages. She said she hadn't studied arachnology so she couldn't say if the spider was poisionous, but there was not way she could put her daughter in an unsafe environment. She sent another message about how much I had inconvenienced her, how she had to book a more expensive place last minute, and I should have told her that there would be more bugs around this time of year so she could have booked somewhere else (we are the least expensive listing around so it wouldn't have mattered when she booked as far as price was concerned, and I seriously doubt that the new place they went mentioned to them that it was spider season). She sent another message telling me that she had spoken to Airbnb and they had refunded their portion of the taxes and fees. Then of course she left me a one star review where she slammed our place, not only mentioning the spider (there was one, single spider. She sent me a picture) and also complaining about several other features of our cottage that are clearly mentioned in the listing description. I sent Airbnb a Twitter DM telling them that she hadn't actually stayed in the cabin, so I didn't think she was able to leave a reveiw, as per Airbnb terms. I got a response that because she had checked in she was able to leave a review, but that someone would be contacting me from Airbnb. I got a call and the case manager said that the review was going to be removed, but the reason for the review deletion was because she mentioned details of the "investigation" (that Airbnb had given her a refund of the fees, etc), and not because she hadn't actually stayed there, or anything to do with the circumstances.
So two things that I wanted to vent about. The first is the fact that I have been a Superhost for who knows how long, have at least three years' worth of excellent reviews and none which mentions bugs, and that she had been in the cottage for less than an hour and hadn't actually stayed, had nothing to do with the deleted review. It is so disheartening how one unreasonable guest can tank your rating percentage and we have absolutely no recourse other than to respond to a horrible review. Also, I'm not sure what the "investigation" is that the case manager mentioned, but I'm wondering if I now have some sort of a red flag on my account or something?
The second thing is that this woman booked the least expensive place she can find, the title of which is, "Rustic Country Cottage", and then freaked out and demanded a refund, reported me to Airbnb, and continued to send me nasty messages even after I gave her a refund immediately upon request, all because she found a single spider in one of the rooms. Sheesh!
Okay, thanks for listening. I hope none of you have to deal with something like this.
